Banned

Wow, this is ridiculous. All they have to do is take the file from the US store and use that one. They work perfectly. Instead we get

Hi guys,

Sorry or the delay in getting back to you, we have just been waiting on information from the Store team.

Unfortunately the slow down issue with this title is not going to be fixed. If any of you feel the game is unplayable or you want to request a refund then you can contact your local PlayStation Support for further assistance.

Fafracer forever

So do the PS3s - it's some bizarre artificial restriction.
"Any" 50hz Pal encoded content on NTSC machine will refuse to play with same error : games, DVDs, even BluRay SD content on official NTSC release BluRays. Region agnostic - it will fail even on region-free DVD played from a USB-stick.
But - if you open a file-view instead and directly open one of the video-files (bypassing the DVD menu) - the content will play without problems. The said PS1 PAL games play just fine on PSPs as well...

THese games ARE files from the US Store, at least I assume they are, given that a game like Arc the Lad was never released in Europe, so there's no EU version to be used. Seems like the issues come from something in PS3's hardware and/or OS/emulation.

Member

I'll be particularly keen to see how the Wii U handles VC in Europe. Games being in their natively-designed 60hz rather than suffering bastardized 50hz imitations will make the difference between old-school collectors like myself happily spending spending hundreds on classic games, or spending... nothing.

I assume this is a PS3 only issue? Haven't noticed any issues on Vita.

THese games ARE files from the US Store, at least I assume they are, given that a game like Arc the Lad was never released in Europe, so there's no EU version to be used. Seems like the issues come from something in PS3's hardware and/or OS/emulation.

Except that people with PAL PS3's have bought PS1 games from the US PSN and they've ran at 60Hz, so no. SCEE quite clearly tried to fuck around with the CD images to get them to run at 50Hz, essentially gimping them. I think I'll be asking for a refund for Klonoa. Fuck you SCEE.

I just gave RE2 and RE3 a try and they run at 60Hz. Alundra however, doesn't. Anyone got Arc the Lad 2 and 3 and want to try them out? I assume they won't because SCEE are FUCKING MORONS.

Edit: Where the hell's Vic? Maybe if we complain to MonkeyPaw and him enough, they'll try to get them fixed.

Member

I'll be particularly keen to see how the Wii U handles VC in Europe. Games being in their natively-designed 60hz rather than suffering bastardized 50hz imitations will make the difference between old-school collectors like myself happily spending spending hundreds on classic games, or spending... nothing.

As far as I'm aware this affected all EU consoles during this period, right? Unavoidable because of the TV standards, and I guess the majority of developers/publishers didn't want to invest in the optimisation process.

I'll be particularly keen to see how the Wii U handles VC in Europe. Games being in their natively-designed 60hz rather than suffering bastardized 50hz imitations will make the difference between old-school collectors like myself happily spending spending hundreds on classic games, or spending... nothing.

Member

Except that people with PAL PS3's have bought PS1 games from the US PSN and they've ran at 60Hz, so no. SCEE quite clearly tried to fuck around with the CD images to get them to run at 50Hz, essentially gimping them. I think I'll be asking for a refund for Klonoa. Fuck you SCEE.

I just gave RE2 and RE3 a try and they run at 60Hz. Alundra however, doesn't. Anyone got Arc the Lad 2 and 3 and want to try them out? I assume they won't because SCEE are FUCKING MORONS.

Edit: Where the hell's Vic? Maybe if we complain to MonkeyPaw and him enough, they'll try to get them fixed.

Well, again, Arc the Lad was never released in Europe and it's not published by Sony, so I don't see why SCEE would have anything to do with it running badly. Why would they deliberately gimp games, especially ones not their own and ones that don't even have a gimped version in the first place? I know it's cool to think Sony and all the other evil corporations are always out to get you, but I really don't see why Sony would do any of this. Same goes for Klonoa (it's a Namco Bandai game). Also, I've had no problems with Alundra (on Vita), so the problem clearly isn't in the game files, but maybe something with the PS3 itself.

Member

I sorta feel bad for buying PSX games off EU PSN...altho I have yet to notice the 50 Hz-ness in MGS1 (which i plan to re-purchase off US PSN when it goes on sale) and other PSX games I got off EU PSN.
Regardless I plan on getting PSX games from US PSN from now on.

Member

I sorta feel bad for buying PSX games off EU PSN...altho I have yet to notice the 50 Hz-ness in MGS1 (which i plan to re-purchase off US PSN when it goes on sale) and other PSX games I got off EU PSN.
Regardless I plan on getting PSX games from US PSN from now on.

My rule with EU Store is to get only those PSone Classics which were originally developed in Europe, so native PAL50 (WipEout, to name the first one I can think of).
For everything else, I just look at US/JP Store.

Member

I'm seriously considering going to trading standards for this. It's one thing for it to be a bug or technical problem, but to actually advertise it as 60hz is a complete breach of my trust when they clearly know it isn't.

Banned

Yup, it's pretty stupid. I can at least confirm that this is also the case for Arc the Lad 2,3 and Arena and also Shienryu and GaiaSeed.
The only import (I know of) that doesn't do it is Resident Evil 3.

Member

I see they have marked it as solved and that is not very classy from their part.

The thing is that those versions are even worse than the ones we got in EU, because games released in EU were 50 Hz but modified so that the experience could be as close as possible. This version just run at 50 Hz without making any alteration whatsoever to the speed of the game resulting in a constant slowdown effect present 100% of the time. Just being a tad slow butchers Alundra's town music into something I could not bare to continue to play.

If some imports really run at 60 Hz maybe it only affects Monkey Paw Games games?

I sent them an email just before starting that thread in playstation support and never recieved a reply. I wonder what's the issue preventing them to force the PS3 to run the game at 60 Hz since the games seem to perform normally both on Vita and PSP.

Member

Well, again, Arc the Lad was never released in Europe and it's not published by Sony, so I don't see why SCEE would have anything to do with it running badly. Why would they deliberately gimp games, especially ones not their own and ones that don't even have a gimped version in the first place? I know it's cool to think Sony and all the other evil corporations are always out to get you, but I really don't see why Sony would do any of this. Same goes for Klonoa (it's a Namco Bandai game). Also, I've had no problems with Alundra (on Vita), so the problem clearly isn't in the game files, but maybe something with the PS3 itself.

Because Sony are the ones that do the entire process? Figuring out if there are legal issues, QA and wrapping the disc images up in whatever wrapper they've created for their emulator. Or do you seriously think it was MonkeyPaw that released the Japanese version of Arc the Lad on the SCEE PSN originally?

I sorta feel bad for buying PSX games off EU PSN...altho I have yet to notice the 50 Hz-ness in MGS1 (which i plan to re-purchase off US PSN when it goes on sale) and other PSX games I got off EU PSN.
Regardless I plan on getting PSX games from US PSN from now on.

Member

Because Sony are the ones that do the entire process? Figuring out if there are legal issues, QA and wrapping the disc images up in whatever wrapper they've created for their emulator. Or do you seriously think it was MonkeyPaw that released the Japanese version of Arc the Lad on the SCEE PSN originally?

And yet again, Alundra works just fine on Vita (and apparently PSP). The issue isn't in SCEE or MonkeyPaw or any other Evil Corporation fucking with you, but something in how PS3 emulates the games. Or something.

I mean, COME ON, doing something to these games to make them run badly instead of just releasing them as is would require MORE WORK which equals to MORE MONEY SPENT. Why on Earth would they do that when it's a guaranteed shitstorm in their way once people figure it out?

Can't really comment on how the Arc the Lad mistake happened, but that wasn't intentional and I guess it could just be a result of a simple human error that isn't in any way comparable to what you're experiencing with these games.

Member

And yet again, Alundra works just fine on Vita (and apparently PSP). The issue isn't in SCEE or MonkeyPaw or any other Evil Corporation fucking with you, but something in how PS3 emulates the games. Or something.

I mean, COME ON, doing something to these games to make them run badly instead of just releasing them as is would require MORE WORK which equals to MORE MONEY SPENT. Why on Earth would they do that when it's a guaranteed shitstorm in their way once people figure it out?

Can't really comment on how the Arc the Lad mistake happened, but that wasn't intentional and I guess it could just be a result of a simple human error that isn't in any way comparable to what you're experiencing with these games.

Of course it's not intentional. That never was the train of thought imo. The problem started when we were told that the issue was not going to be fixed and offered refunds, while they keep releasing broken games.

You obviously wasnt about in the SNES/Mega Drive days. The PAL version of Street Fighter II on the SNES was a joke, massive black borders at the top and bottom of the screen and it was so slow!, i couldnt believe the difference when i went into my local Indie shop 'Select Consoles' back in the day and saw the Japanese version running in all its full screen/full speed glory!!

Member

And yet again, Alundra works just fine on Vita (and apparently PSP). The issue isn't in SCEE or MonkeyPaw or any other Evil Corporation fucking with you, but something in how PS3 emulates the games. Or something.

I mean, COME ON, doing something to these games to make them run badly instead of just releasing them as is would require MORE WORK which equals to MORE MONEY SPENT. Why on Earth would they do that when it's a guaranteed shitstorm in their way once people figure it out?

Can't really comment on how the Arc the Lad mistake happened, but that wasn't intentional and I guess it could just be a result of a simple human error that isn't in any way comparable to what you're experiencing with these games.

Seeing as they said they weren't going to fix the issues, clearly they a) Didn't think people would care and b) Didn't intend to do any more work anyway!

The PS3 uses the exact same emulator Sony's been using for almost a decade now, so blaming it on the emulator is completely ridiculous. I mean really, how on earth do you think Americans have been playing the game up till now if it were the emulators fault?

The only possible way I could see this being a mistake is if they fucked up the encoding and set the PS3 emulator to only run it at 50Hz but in that case, it'd still be SCEE's fault! Especially seeing as this shit has been happening since JANUARY! They'd be setting a new record for incompetence.

Banned

Same problem with the newly released Tombi!. They really don't seem to care about this problem.

Also, I can confirm that this doesn't seem to be a problem on the Vita. I tried GaiaSeed on both the PS3 and Vita and the Vita version is clearly running at 60Hz. Sadly, Tombi! doesn't work on the Vita so far.

Member

Tomba! Does not warn you about needing a 60 Hz diplay. Alundra still does.

They have added a warning in the description, that basically says that the product, since it's emulated, may not perform like the original. (Can someone write what it says in the UK store? I only have a Spanish account).

They have edited out the message in the support forums, were they told the users to ask for a refund, because the issue was not going to be fixed.

Crap 50Hz/ bordered versions is how I originally played them so I don't mind. The problem is that those "US Import" version are even worse than crap 50 Hz/bordered because they don't even run at full speed.

There's been 5 firmware updates since Arc The Lad was released. At least 1 firmware update since that thread in Playstation Support about Alundra started.
Also if it was a firmware bug they could try to fake the game id into, I dunno, for example, Syphon Filter US making the emulator think its a NTSC game forcing it to display at 60 Hz.